Ed, why on earth do you not have a storage unit? With your inventory seems like it would be worth the cost, and justified pretty easily. Also, how do you think about something like insurance?

 

It looks like he has a pretty big house. A basement I am assuming there. Plus you can build forts in like every room!

Hmm, that sure is an impressive stack of boxes as usual from emazers.  It certainly keeps things nice and tidy.  I do this with a few of my sets as well, but I leave the boxes untaped. Fairly often I have people pick up sets rather than needing to ship them, so then I can just hand them the Lego without wasting a shipping box.  

 

I'm not drinking the Kool Aid on the only buy bulk exclusives and big sets though.  There is quite clear evidence in the numbers provided on this site of other sets that have returns at least as good if not more than exclusive/big sets.  The "emazers strategy" works well for investors with large amounts of capital.  But for 99% of the members here that will not be the case.  Most investors would be best served by employing a wide variety of strategies.  Flipping, short term holds, used sets, long term holds,retired sets, and more, can and should be employed depending on the circumstances of the investor and the situation presented to them.

 

If you are an investor trying to maximise profits from a limited amount of capital, grow your portfolio, or even just make lots of side money to fund your own collecting - I implore you to read as many of the blogs and articles we have here on Brickpicker as possible.  Buy some big/exclusive sets, sure, but there are many many other great opportunities available.

I'm not drinking the Kool Aid on the only buy bulk exclusives and big sets though.  There is quite clear evidence in the numbers provided on this site of other sets that have returns at least as good if not more than exclusive/big sets.  The "emazers strategy" works well for investors with large amounts of capital.  But for 99% of the members here that will not be the case.  Most investors would be best served by employing a wide variety of strategies.  Flipping, short term holds, used sets, long term holds,retired sets, and more, can and should be employed depending on the circumstances of the investor and the situation presented to them.

 

If you are an investor trying to maximise profits from a limited amount of capital, grow your portfolio, or even just make lots of side money to fund your own collecting - I implore you to read as many of the blogs and articles we have here on Brickpicker as possible.  Buy some big/exclusive sets, sure, but there are many many other great opportunities available.

 

There is plenty of money to be made on the smaller sets if you are paying attention to the market. How you use that (short term/long term) is up to your own strategies. I look at something like LOTR though and see plenty of dollars in it because it's Lego lifespan will die off quickly after the third Hobbit movie, and is unlikely to be seen again. 

It comes down to what works for you personally. There is no one size fits all here, that much is obvious. Everyone has different strategy, interests (in sets), and budgets, which makes it impossible for anyone to follower identical paths. Personally, if I buy a set for $15 and sell it for $25, that would be just as much of a success as buying a big exclusive set for $300 and selling for $500. Of course I have less money involved, but the return is the same %. If I bough 20 of the $15 and sold them all for this return, I net the same amount of money in theory. More work, perhaps, but maybe my budget didn`t allow me to buy them all at once, and rather picked them up over time. Just saying as an example.

 

Point is that if you make money in the end, you`ve made a successful investment. You can be "more" successful yes, but success is success is it not? Then there is the issue of deciding how much you want to make/when to sell. If you have happy to make a 30% return on something now rather then wait another year to perhaps gain 40%, who is anyone to suggest you do something different? Everyone knows what they hope to gain, and if you gain that, you`ve succeeded IMO, regardless of whether or not they compare to the hopes/strategy of others. 

Rather than box mine up beforehand, I put each set in a waterproof bag and seal it with Duck Tape.  I then write the set number on the tape so that I know what's in the bag.  The bags are black rather than clear so that there is no risk of boxes fading even though they are in the attic.  When I start shipping sets, they will remain in these bags before getting boxed as parcels are sometimes left out in the rain in the UK.

Don't Let Ed Fool you, There's Nothing Inside!

Hmm, that sure is an impressive stack of boxes as usual from emazers.  It certainly keeps things nice and tidy.  I do this with a few of my sets as well, but I leave the boxes untaped. Fairly often I have people pick up sets rather than needing to ship them, so then I can just hand them the Lego without wasting a shipping box.  

 

I'm not drinking the Kool Aid on the only buy bulk exclusives and big sets though.  There is quite clear evidence in the numbers provided on this site of other sets that have returns at least as good if not more than exclusive/big sets.  The "emazers strategy" works well for investors with large amounts of capital.  But for 99% of the members here that will not be the case.  Most investors would be best served by employing a wide variety of strategies.  Flipping, short term holds, used sets, long term holds,retired sets, and more, can and should be employed depending on the circumstances of the investor and the situation presented to them.

 

If you are an investor trying to maximise profits from a limited amount of capital, grow your portfolio, or even just make lots of side money to fund your own collecting - I implore you to read as many of the blogs and articles we have here on Brickpicker as possible.  Buy some big/exclusive sets, sure, but there are many many other great opportunities available.

 

I agree with this.  The one thing I have noticed in many emazer posts is he keeps telling people to put all your money in this set and that set. Like others have said, that may be his strategy and I am sure a decent one at that.  But if he keeps telling everyone to buy just these sets, he will be sitting on a big pile of doo doo in the future (well maybe not that drastic).  Anyhow, people do need to purchase what they feel comfortable with. Emazers has been helpful and I appreciate the images and posts, but people need to follow their own path. Nothing is guaranteed.

that's quite an impressive inventory Ed.  I think limiting to just hard to find sets and exclusive may be trickier now than before with the change in LEGO strategy of selling stuff longer.  The smaller sets may be more work to sell but they still only last a year or 2.

 

Thanks for the pics and posts!

Don't Let Ed Fool you, There's Nothing Inside!

 

It's like KISS.  The have HUGE stacks of Amps behind them and most of them are empty with no speakers.  Its all part of the show. 

Seems like a roundabout way to explain why you box in advance.  It seems convenient.  I like to see the sets I have for resale, not piles of brown boxes.  I do however keep the boxes sets are shipped in and just break them down.  Just takes a couple pieces of tape to get them ship ready again.  Still sticking to my own investment plan though.  Looking at boxes like that in my own home would feel eerie after a few months, I can only imagine what that would be like after a few years.

Can you imagine an episode of Storage Wars where Brandi & Jarrod come upon this stash?!

It looks like he has a pretty big house. A basement I am assuming there. Plus you can build forts in like every room!

Little Johnny makes forts out of 500 LEGO bricks. Ed Mazers makes forts out of 1,000 LEGO sets!